Viraj's Blog

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the 2008 Association for Asian American Studies Annual Meeting in Chicago. For three days, I met and listened to current scholars, PhD students, professors and leaders in the field of AAS as they presented their research, papers they had written, and probably hooked up like nobody's business. To my knowledge, I was the only undergraduate student there, and it was really interesting to see so many of my professors and mentors outside of the academic setting. The conference itself provoked not only a few thoughts for blog entries, but the creation of this blog itself.

On Thursday (the first official day of the conference) evening, they conference provided entertainment after-hours- a South Asian Hip Hop Showcase entitled HipHopistan, and cosponsored with the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. It featured the amazing DJ Rekha, who has been informally credited with being crucial to bringing bhangra to the United States. There was also a Tamil-speaking hiphop group from Malaysia called Yogi B and Natchatra- I didn't understand a word they said but they were definitely great performers. They lost a few points with their song about "sexy Indian girls wearing saris" but they're definitely worth a listen.

The other three artists are named MC Kabir, Chee Malabar, and AbstractVision. MC Kabir is half Indian, half Italian, and all around inspirational. His sound is an amalgamation of many different sounds, and he actually teaches hiphop to grade school and middle school aged children. Chee Malabar is a 1.5 generation immigrant who works with juvenile delinquents and is in a duo called The Himalayan Project. The sound system on Thursday was really unfair to him- the background was too loud to be able to fully appreciate his lyrics. AbstractVision is the youngest of the crew- from New Jersey, and barely 21, he's definitely making his mark on the HipHop Scene. Watch out for him!

Overall, listening to these artists and experiencing their art live was a really amazing experience..I wish I went to more hip hop shows. Once I got over the fact that Professor Rana was standing like a foot and a half away from me while I was dancing, I had a blast :)


The next day, during the conference, there was a panel with the performers (minus Yogi B and Crew) facilitated by Professor Nitasha Sharma from Northwestern, probably one of the coolest people I've ever sat in a room with. One of the most interesting points raised in the panel centered around this schema of "South Asian Hip Hop", and what it meant. All of the artists agreed that they bonded over their passion for music, not their South Asian-ness, and that the category is really just a social construction that provides a venue through which to reach mainstream audiences- their South Asian-ness isn't necessarily a salient value in all of their music. Essentially, they all acknowledge that being considered a South Asian Hip Hop Artist comes with a luxury that is not afforded to Black artists- nobody gives importance and special performance opportunities on the basis of race for Black performers.

At this point, Chee Malabar said, in regards to categorizing himself under the title of a South Asian Hip Hop Artist even in spite of the lack of "south asian-ness" represented in his lyrics..."I'm not gonna say no." He went on to elaborate that, even though he doesn't necessarily label his music as South Asian Hip Hop, he isn't going to deny the venue for exposure it provides for him. On the surface, this seems like a decent statement to make- after all, why would you say no if it gives you a step up?

Abrupt transition.

I don't claim to be an original fan of M.I.A. I'm definitely a bandwagon fan- much thanks to Imran Siddiquee and Rupa Dev- but I still appreciate her music and I understand what she is fighting for. Her songs, saturated with political critique, challenge me to rethink my own schema of hiphop and the power of a musician to be an activist as well. While M.I.A has been around for a number, she has only recently become a fairly mainstream artist, and I've heard her music on many TV shows as well.

The song that you hear the most, and the one that (arguably) really put her into the mainstream is her collaboration with Timbaland, Come Around. The song is on Shock Value and on Kala- you've probably heard it..and if you haven't you need to figure out what rock you're living under.
Don't get me wrong here- the song is damn catchy. But, after paying closer attention to the lyrics, I'm kind of disappointed in M.I.A for agreeing to do the song itself. The song itself glamorizes and sexualizes NRI South Asian women and their lifestyles, and ultimately is pretty derogatory. One of the two lines that really bother me is "Indian chicks they get men laid", which only contributes to the objectification of Indian Women as sexual objects..not to mention the overt assumption of heterosexuality (see my first post).

The other line- and this is the one that really drives me crazy- is sung by Timbaland. "Baby girl you and me need to go to your teepee". Now, I've considered the fact that the song really is political commentary and that I'm just not picking up on some of the sarcasm. I definitely think that M.I.A's part has some commentary, but I just don't think that Timbaland's does. The line, to put it bluntly, is completely racist and just magnifies the ignorance in mainstream US culture about race, Indians, and Native American (I'll go ahead and cite the Chief here as further proof.)

In spite of these lyrics, the song is pretty big right now, and it's working to make M.I.A. a more mainstream and popular artist...and hopefully people are listening to other songs too.

I'm not going to lie- I'm really disappointed in her for allowing this song to happen, but I can't deny the wonders its done for her career. After listening to Chee Malabar, I started thinking...is it worth it? To lessen the value of your own work and to compromise your own beliefs in the name of people knowing your name? Of course, the argument exists that people will listen to other music by M.I.A, but that's definitely not a guarantee. The fact that this one song compromises so much of her other work cheapens the music I think really challenges audiences (listen to Hussel).

To connect it back to the first part, pretty much everyone in HipHopistan did it too. While they don't identify as a South Asian hiphop artist, they all agreed to be a part of the HipHopistan event because, well, it was a venue. And to a certain extent I guess it worked- I'm talking and thinking about them, right?


I don't have a conclusion here. I can't blame these artists for making the decisions that they did- the music industry is brutal, especially for the artists that don't fit the traditional genre (by race and gender in these cases) they are trying to succeed in. But still- I find it hard to respect them when they are so consciously contradicting themselves.

thoughts?